Rick Kinnaird

Okay. Well. Hum. I saw a headline today:
“Ocasio-Cortez Melts Down Amid Mockery of Her Wells Fargo Questions”
and
“WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Tries To Grill Well Fargo’s CEO. He Destroys Her.”
It’s from The Hill.
I looked up The Hill on Wikipedia and surprise surprise it’s a “conservative” media outlet.
The subtext of the article both said “socialist …”
Both articles showed the same two minute video.
There was nothing grilling about the questioning. There was no melt down. There was no mockery. It was a rather usual kind of questioning. She asked him about funding various pipeline projects and he said they didn’t fund one of the two pipelines she mentioned and that the other one was done with a group of banks and he claimed only for a short period of time. I’ll be interested to see what the facts are. I wonder what he thinks “a short period of time” is. I also wonder if he’s correct in what he said. But in no way was there a melt down, or even a heated exchange. I mean if you want heated exchanges or not even heated but snarky and attempts to put words in someone’s mouth watch Jim Jordan. Ocasio-Cortez is not like that. She is factual, controlled, and to the point. Her basic question was “shouldn’t banks be responsible for the clean up of the oil spills on the pipelines they lent money to build?” He didn’t answer that question. Instead he said they didn’t lend the money for one of the pipelines AOC brought up, and the other one for only a short period of time. Is that mockery? Did he destroy her? No. What if he’s misinformed and Well Fargo really did lend the money? So two can play that game, but really? Come on now.

There was an interview with Erik Prince. This was more of a grilling. He was asked some questions. He said he didn’t say what he was quoted in a transcript as saying. He then claimed the transcript was wrong. Okay? Who do you believe? He was caught out several times in the course of two minutes. Aren’t you surprised The Hill didn’t report that? No, of course not, they will only report what they think makes someone they don’t like look bad. In the case of AOC the headlines were lies – plain and simple. What are they counting on? They have to be wanting to create the illusion and hope they don’t get confronted on the fact. They want the headline to carry the day. It’s an old sad trick.

I’ve heard and read people attacking AOC. Calling her a socialist, saying she’s a witch, saying she doesn’t live in her district, that her local office isn’t ready yet, that they think her Green New Deal is too expensive, etc. etc. etc. But what do those people offer instead? What is their plan?
They offer what they call a more modest or moderate approach. Or they say it’s not that big a deal. Or one person who ripped her for being a socialist said that what we needed was a government agency to oversee … hold on, isn’t that socialism?
Okay, how have moderate solutions worked out since 1980 when Reagan came into office? The middle class has been in decline. The poor have been attacked and ostracized. The rich have become absurdly richer and we as a nation have gone deeply into debt under conservative economic guidance. So let me ask, “Do you want more of the same?”
What Ms Ocasio-Cortez has said is we can fix these problems if we want to do it. We are a great nation and we have always risen to the challenges before. She is calling for bold new thinking and aggressive new plans. She is not for subtle half measures.
So do you want to be the frog in the slow boil pot? We’ve been that for 48 years.
Or do you want to say, “Screw that! I’m jumping out and doing something different, because what we’ve been doing isn’t working.”

You want to call it socialism, you want to call it government regulated capitalism, you want to call it Have You Had Enough of This Conservative Give Money to the Rich BS? I don’t care what you want to call it, but it’s time for a change. It’s time for new leadership. It’s time for new ideas. Screw the moderate approach. It hasn’t worked.

In other news two planes crashed recently. Both seemed to have had a similar problem. It is with an automatic trim device. For some reason it put the planes into a nose dive shortly after take off. This has been a problem that had been identified by pilots and yet no action has been taken to fix it. The current procedure is to disable the device. As in “If the plane goes into a nose dive it is recommended to disable the trim device,” which if you haven’t been told ahead of time (that would be called “training” ) you probably aren’t going to flip through old notices to see what to do in that situation.
But don’t worry we have the FAA. It’s being run by an “acting” official because after Trump couldn’t get his personal pilot approved for the job never bothered to nominate anyone else. You remember the pilot? The one who didn’t file the registration papers for the plane Trump was flying around in? You know that’s like riding around in a car with expired plates. Was he also the one that banged the plane Pence was in when the landed at La Guardia? I think so.
Hey but don’t worry the Secretary of Transportation is all over it. She’s Mitch McConnell’s wife. Remember her? She was Secretary of Labor for eight years under W. Her tenure was marked by walking away from regulatory functions and not investigating low wage and hour law complaints. They didn’t conduct mine safety checks, sided with business against employees and unions. Yeah, I’m sure she’ll do a fine job.
When not in government service she was a Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Fox News. What could go wrong?

Meanwhile Paul Manafort got sentenced for another few months bringing his prison time to seven and a half years. Hey, he told the judge he was sorry and that his wife needed him at home. Why didn’t she, the judge, listen to him?
Right after his sentence was handed down the State of New York hit him with a 16 count indictment. Aw, no Paulie. you’re going to have to go through more pain and suffering.

Otherwise it’s been quiet. Hasn’t it?
In the batter’s box: Roger the Dodger. I can’t wait to hear his explanation to the judge this time.
On deck; Michael Flynn. Last time the judge wanted to charge him with treason but judges aren’t the ones that bring charges.
And after that why it’s Rick Gates. Who’s been a good boy? Is it you?

We’ll see.

Meanwhile the White House released a budget. This is stunning. Trump wants money for a wall on the southern border (who knew?), more money for the military, and he wants to screw the poor and the middle class. Meanwhile, the White House is moving to close immigration centers. I gotta believe the last one is the brainchild of Stephen Miller. I mean what a brilliant idea! “Sorry, but you have to enter this country legally, and you can’t do that because we’ve closed all the centers!!!”

Every day this week another criminal uncovered in the Mueller probe will go before a judge to learn more about their fate. Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone (again), Rick Gates is the line up Monday through Friday.

In a hilarious piece of, (I dunno what to call it, silliness?) Roger Stone and his lawyers are crying crocodile tears because he is rereleasing a book with a new intro. The intro is about the case he has been gag-ordered on. The legal team is arguing that the man needs to make a living. Gee, I wish he’d go before the House committee and we could get those Reps to ask him, like they did Michael Cohen, to forego any profits from a book or movie deal. Wouldn’t you love to hear Roger play “poor me”?

Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi (or as Donald calls her “Nancy”) has said she’s not for impeachment. Well this got everyone buzzing. This even got the White House to hold a press conference. The first in 42 days. Okay, maybe they had another reason to hold one. I forget what they were trying to distract us from. I think Sarah Sanders is incredible. To lie like that and seem to feel no remorse is stunning. It’s not like Jared, who from recent accounts is the dumb dark lord, but he appears so young freshly scrubbed face innocent.

Nancy is really really smart politically. Why push for impeachment and take up all the time and resources that would take for Mitch in the Senate to do what he’s been doing all along – nothing (except pushing through right wing judges that will screw up the country for generations)? Nancy will wait until the Mueller report comes out (or the president is shackled and dragged out of the White House) and then she, like Mitch, will count Senatorial votes, if the count to impeach goes to 67 Senators, then she’ll act. In the meantime she’ll keep working on things that actually help people in this country. She also realizes that if Trump goes Pence becomes president (Ouch, that’s like the old joke about Nixon when Agnew was VP. Nixon would say, “Either give me what I want or I’ll go in the White House and kill myself.” (The implication being that Agnew would be much worse.) )

And then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apparently drew the largest crowds at Davos. Standing room only, out the door. Her message? The rich have to pay taxes; a combination of capitalism and government working together (sometimes called socialism) is the best way for a society to move forward, and – oh yeah – if we don’t address climate change we’re screwed. Also, she pointed out again and again that we as a society, as individuals, as governments, as countries are able to do great things. Think big, act. ( Fucking Commie Socialist. What the hell? )

Then there was the testimony of the head of The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being interviewed by Congress. The woman didn’t know what went into an Annual Percentage Rate (APR). Now, if you are head of the agency whose main responsibility is protecting folks from high interest rates then knowing what things go into the calculation of those interest rates is a pretty important thing to know. But she didn’t. She was also asked to calculate an APR based on a payday lender type example (You borrow $200 for two weeks at a setup cost of $20 and a rate of $10 per hundred for the two weeks. What is the APR?) I did the calculation in my head (520%). The woman, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau not only couldn’t do the calculation, she had no idea where to start. The rep asking the question offered to loan her a text book on the subject if she needed it. The textbook the rep had written! Seems to me we need the rep in charge of the CFPB and not this yahoo that Trump picked.

Okay, that’s it.

Well, one more thing. Trump has submitted a budget that cuts health care and social services and increases spending in defense and his wall. What a surprise!

The howls on the right are increasing to finish up the Mueller probe. There are mimes saying stuff like the only thing Congress is doing is spending money investigating one another.

Isn’t that interesting? (Okay, it’s not. But say it in a Church Lady voice and it gets better.)

Let’s review:

Mueller has charged a bunch of people and organizations. Some have been sentenced to jail. Additionally, he has referred cases to other prosecutors that have uncovered other criminal activity, which is not part of his purview, but do show a pattern of deceit and contempt for not only our laws but our fundamental sense of fairness and what it means to be an American. Nothing illustrates that more than the boob in North Dakota who is a Republican operative and alleged boyfriend of Russian spy Martina Butina. I say alleged because Martina complained to her Russian handlers about having to be around this fellow. He had a way of making money, which was sending out mailers with patriotic names and making promises of good deeds and patriotic stuff. Once he got the check; he cashed it and moved on.

Of course we could look at Paul Manafort who laundered money for Russians and Ukrainians and did the dirty political behind the scenes stuff for the dirtiest of dictators and got a light sentence for it.

We could look at the Republican behavior toward the Democrats for the last three decades, starting with Whitewater. It is worth going back and reading the Wikipedia article on Whitewater. What it shows, among other things, was a persistent attempt by rich right wing people with no real interest in the American people to go after and hound the Clintons. Again and again the Clintons were accused and they were found to be innocent, or at worst, there was no credible evidence. This did not stop the false accusations and conspiracy allegations however. Finally, Ken Starr who was the second of three special prosecutors who finally left the investigation to hide out at Pepperdine University after there were complaints regarding him and sexual misconduct, admitted under oath that the Clintons were completely exonerated of any wrongdoing in two matters that had been ginned up by the right wing media and the Republicans. They were called Travelgate and Filegate. Somehow, Mr. Starr had forgotten to mention this at the time that it would have been appropriate to do. It was an “Oh by the way” admission as he was going out the door.

Hillary Clinton was asked under oath about Whitewater and her candid and fully truthful answers were applauded at the time. Not that this stopped the Republicans or right wing from continuously attacking her.

When all was said and done a few Arkansas folks were found guilty of financial crimes. The Clintons were never charged and not found guilty of any wrongdoing. There was grumbling that they or their lawyers had not been helpful enough.

This kind of attacking of the Clintons continued into her campaigns for president. She at one point said there was a vast right wing conspiracy and this outraged them, but of course, there was and there still is.

Then came Benghazi.

But let’s review the record on Benghazi. There was:

– An FBI Investigation

– Senate Committee investigation on Intelligence

– House committee investigation #1

– House committee investigation #2

– House committee investigation #3

– House committee investigation #4

– House committee investigation #5

– State Department Accountability Review Board

– Senate Committee investigation on Homeland Security

– House Select Committee

What did they find?

The administration did not adequately deploy resources to protect the staff.

What they forgot to mention was that the Republicans in charge of much of the investigating were the same people who voted to cut funds for security and to cut security positions from the State Department. Republican representative Issa and Chaffetz who were at the center of the House investigations were also the ones who voted to cut over half a billion dollars from State’s security budget. Issa voted to eliminate 300 security positions from State. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State went to Congress repeatedly to beg for funding. She was denied. She warned the Congressional people that this would have consequences for national security. When it did, those self same Congressmen tried to blame her.

The people guarding the compound in Benghazi were contracted through a British firm and were armed with flashlights and batons. Hardly, what was needed against a trained group of armed terrorists.

This continued into the seven Benghazi hearings that the Republicans held. The facts were known after the first hearing. Actually, before the first hearing, but this didn’t stop the Republicans from holding hearing after hearing, but for the record let’s review the House Select Committee:

First Hearing September 17, 2014 Trey Gowdy chairman.

December 2014 Chairman Gowdy announced the hearing would continue into January, February, and March of 2015. Gowdy said they would be interviewing 20 Obama administration officials. He said in February that they would be questioning why the State Department was in Benghazi. The hearing was not held. By April he had interviewed none of the twenty and had said they were shifting their focus from the attack itself to reviewing policy decisions by Clinton a few days before the attack. By June they had interviewed 29 witnesses. It was clear to Elijah Cummings that the purpose of the long drawn out investigation was to attack Clinton and her campaign for President. Gowdy said it was the slow response of the Obama lawyers to requests for documents. This was not shown to be true because the committee didn’t ask for documents until mid November 2014 from State and mid April 2015 from Defense. At this point Gowdy said the hearings would continue through 2016.

What did they find? Well, not much and what they did find they tried to redact the testimony to try and show Clinton was somehow to blame for their own lack of funding which had led to the debacle.

One State official at the time said that it was not the danger at the outposts that worried him, but rather the problem from people in Congress that were supposed to be helping him and others.

Kevin McCarthy, head Republican in the House, admitted that much of the Benghazi hearing were to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Way to go Kev! You did it.

What is especially egregious about all this is that you can say what you want about the Clintons. Maybe they skated close to ethics or legal things, but the Republicans that were accusing them were doing the same sorts of things, really doing them, not skating near the edge at all. They were doing those things while investigating the Clintons. Be it Whitewater or Benghazi or Bill’s sexual misconduct – what the Republicans were doing in each and ever instance was much much more egregious.

Whitewater was at best an uncovering of some local corrupt state officials. Compare that to Manafort, Flynn, and Trump who were not only doing dirty deals, but endangering the country. The scale of their crimes is off the charts compared to whatever the Clintons might have done. Remember the outrage over Hillary Clinton having her picture taken with a contributor to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State? So what if it was normal for a Secretary of State to have photo taken with a person in his position? He was also a contributor to the Clinton Foundation!

Meanwhile Matt Whittaker was being paid hundred of thousands of dollars so he could have a FLA (Four Letter Acronym) after his name while going on Fox News to espouse his silly claims. And while Bill Clinton was being blasted by Gingrich for having an improper relationship with an intern; Gingrich was having an affair himself and a bunch of his Republican representative buddies were staying in a row house in D.C. that was supposedly owned by a church (I guess to avoid taxes or maybe they could claim the rent as a charity donation?) and they were using the house for their affairs. All the while condemning Bill and claiming to be upstanding Christians.

While Chaffetz was outraged and very concerned about Hillary’s private email server he was using one himself. It was printed on his House of Representatives calling card.

So please.

The current outrage over the time that Mueller is taking for a criminal investigation (not a House or Senate inquiry) is taking less time then you boys took to investigate nothing and he is finding lots and lots of criminal activity that seriously undermines our fundamental democracy not to mention the money stolen, laundered, and fraudulently absconded with…Unless you can show me your concern when the Republicans went on and on about nothing.

Stuff it.

I mean, I think we should let the investigation play out and let the chips fall where they may. Don’t you agree?

And please stop posting those silly memes saying how much this is costing and can’t Congress do anything but investigate the other side? If you look at some of the legislation and resolutions being passed in the House you’d see they are doing quite a lot.

The Senate? They aren’t doing squat because the Republicans control it and they aren’t about to help the American people. No sirree. Gotta serve our masters. And that’s not you.

Well, okay. Before I get to it, we need to have the basis in facts, or the fact basis, if you will.

R. Kelly is a name that keeps popping up in the headlines. He’s apparently a musician whose music I have never heard. However, his main claim to fame via the headlines is that he has sexual encounters with underage girls. The word children is frequently used in connection with Mr. Kelly. Not underage but children.

Everything else I know about R. Kelly I learned from the SNL skit that opened last night’s show.

Neverland the TV documentary was released and it apparently outlined Michael Jackson’s weird sexual behavior toward young boys, and the even weirder part that parents let him sleep with their children.

In old news Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was arrested for frequenting a massage parlor that apparently dealt out sexual favors. There are rumors that Mr. Kraft is on tape receiving some such favors. I mean you can say you didn’t know the first time – maybe.

It turns out the girls at the parlor were from China and tricked into coming. They were made to sleep on the massage tables and had to cook food out back of the strip mall where they were housed. The woman who owns the massage parlors has been photographed with Donald Trump in the White House (or was it Mir-a-Lago?) watching The Super Bowl. She has also been publicizing that she can get you access to the president for a price.

It is also rumored that many Florida Republican representatives have frequented this lady’s establishment.

And let’s not forget that Paul Manafort got less than four years when the guidelines called for 20 to 24. His crimes? Stealing $50,000,000.00 and committing acts that some have called treason, and working for the dirtiest of dictators, lying to the Feds, etc. etc. etc. The judge said he has led an exemplary life. (It has been pointed out in example after example that others have received much harsher sentences for far less criminal behavior. And that those folks were generally not white. )

In old old news the Kushner family was trying to sell access to Trump in China,

And in really new new news it has been reported that Jared Kushner is far more unethical and evil and much dumber than Dick Cheney. That’s going a long way!

So given the above “facts” I would like to begin this screed with a diatribe.

What is wrong with America? We are allowing immigrants to come into this country illegally to take good paying jobs from us, god fearing Americans.

Okay that’s enough.

Nothing else to report.

Except the jobs numbers. So much winning. Estimates for jobs created last month was 200,000. Reality was 20,000. Lemme see, gotta do some subtraction. Anyone got a calculator? Lots of zeros. Um. If my math is right that’s a shortfall of 180,000 jobs. What happened? No one knows. Tune in next month.

See if the Chinese hadn’t snuck in here and taken away the need we could have backfilled with Americans. Some say that illegal immigrants are doing the work that Americans don’t want to do. I get that. But I’ve seen reality TV. I think they’d do it.

Oh yes, turns out a reporter had the story on the affair of Stormy Daniels and Trump before the election. She worked for Fox. Rupert killed the story because he wanted Trump to win. That’s fair and balanced. The reporter had more and again it got killed. Way to go Fox. And the Dems don’t want to let them hold one of their debates. Wouldn’t you love to see Kamal Harris go toe to toe with Sean Hannity? How long would it be before Fox cut away to ice dancing? Or maybe their new reality TV show “Blowjobs for Bucks!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen here’s your guest host Harvey Weinestein with a special appearance by Bill Cosby!”

Matt Schlapp was on Bill Maher. He’s the conservative from Kansas that runs CPAC. It was interesting to hear this guy because of how he minced and nuanced somethings and how he didn’t on other issues. The main point that he made was “Hey Trump got elected based on saying he would do certain things and on every major promise he’s done those things.” This is what the guy said – essentially (I didn’t look up the exact quote.) This leaves me in the position of wondering: “does he really believe that?” The “that” can cover several cases:

1) Does he really believe that Trump has accomplished that which he promised to do or

2) is Schlapp trying to pretend he has?

Hey! What’s This?

There is evidenced for both and herein lies the dilemma with trying to talk with people who like Trump. They merrily switch between believing he has while denying the facts, and knowing he hasn’t and not caring. All the while ignoring or pooh-poohing real issues.

OMG!

There are two places that Schlapp exhibited the behavior I’m talking about. First was when Bill asked him about the wall. Schlapp said they are building the wall. Bill said they aren’t. Matt said that every year they have gotten money for the wall. Well, that’s a clever pivot! Getting money for fence repair or whatever ain’t building a new wall, but Matt is happy with that, or pretends to be. It’s enough of a fig leaf for him to be able to hide behind.

Parachutes!

Second was he mentioned in a small slew of things Trump has “accomplished” is a tax cut. Well, Congress passed a bill, called a tax cut, and it is – for the wealthy. Everyone else gets screwed. Is that a tax cut? I guess so. The idea was sold under the guise that it was going to rev up the economy – it hasn’t. That everyone was going to benefit – they didn’t. And that the deficit was going to go down because of it – it’s ballooned. Plus, revenues were going to go up tremendously – They didn’t. The economy would be at 4% – it’s not. The money corporations were going to get back would be put into rebuilding America’s infrastructure – didn’t happen.

Two Parachutes

So yeah, there was a bill. The bill had in the title “tax cut” or was referred to as such, but was it? No.

What worries me is that people like Schlapp are slick in wiggling around the basic truth. Why they want to do that we can debate, but the problem I see for the rest of us is that these people have a hidden agenda that they masquerade as many other things. This is a power grab and distraction. The real thing that is going on is the widening gap between rich and poor, between privilege based on race, wealth, and parentage versus equal opportunity. We have to look no further than the sentencing of Paul Manafort for evidence of that, but in fairness to the judge, I have heard that he is for reduced sentencing for many crimes. I’d like to see what his record is for poor black drug offenders – for example. But if Manafort’s sentencing was applied to all those who have gotten sentenced and were reduces percentage-wise to the sentencing guidelines then we’d have something. (that would make a sentence be 20% of the sentencing guidelines.)

What?

There were several things of interest on the panel discussion of Bill’s show.

One was the analysis based on poll percentages that Trump could win in 2020. He’s at 41% and that’s where other presidents were at this time in their first term who won a second term. Wow.

Oh. More Chutes

Two was the discussion about the muslim woman in Congress who made disparaging remarks about Jews and Israel. There are two distinct points that were being made. One was that she was criticizing Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians. The other was the argument that she was a slur against Jews that has been used for many centuries against the jews around the world and was in fact used by the Nazis. That slur is that the Jewish people are more wedded to Jews than they are to whatever country they are living in. This is referenced in many different ways by folks who want to make this point, typically it’s obliquely referenced as some great world-wide Jewish conspiracy, etc. But it’s been out there for literally centuries. In fact, the Nazis really didn’t have to do much to play on people’s fears because most of the ground work had already been done by the retelling of this kind of stuff. Couple that with the fact that around the time of the rise of the Nazis many of the rural population of Russia was uprooted and forced to move into urban areas. Many of these people were Jewish and most were unsophisticated. Dislike was easy to foment.

Biguns

It’s also hard to try to make a deal with someone who believes that what’s yours really should be mine. This is the view of the Palestinians toward the Israelis, and they have reason to believe this. And it is also the attitude of the Israelis toward the Palestinians and they have a religion that tells them this. (I know. I know. Please, save your breath.)

One – Two – Three …

But it is also the basic negotiating ultimate position of so many peoples and regimes around the world.

Four!

The point being that the Muslim Congresswoman brought up some legitimate questions but then wrapped it in an old stereotypical ethnic slur. Not cool. It is also true that she has said things about Saudi Arabia that are similar to what she said about Israel, but that doesn’t get anywhere near the attention that her Israeli comments receive.

Thing of Beauty

Then there’s the really fun thing. Tom Steyer has run some ads in Mark Meadows’ and Jim Jordan’s districts pointing out what little shits there two are. Both of those districts are poster children for why we need to get rid of gerrymandering. Jordan’s district is a skinny little tract of land that runs north south through the middle of Ohio. It’s very very conservative. Meadows has a similar conservative makeup. And here’s the thing, both of these right wing, Freedom Caucus founders could be primaried from the right. I don’t know how you can become more out of touch, obstructionist, and nutty right wing than these two but if anywhere in America can do it I trust those two districts to be able to show us. At least Steyer is pointing out to folks in those districts how anti-American and hurtful to the American ideals there fools are. Will it make a difference? Maybe a little. Ya gotta start somewhere.

Here we comeUh Huh – 100 meters to goHouston, Dragon X has landedWe are in recovery

And lastly, the most inspiring thing I have seen in a long time was the touchdown video of DragonX, Elon Musk’s space capsule, after leaving the International Space Station. Wow. Wow. (“Hey Clyde, we gotter git rid of deem immigrants. Dey not only stealin’ our jobs, but they’re makin’ us look bad. Creatin’ whole new industries and such.”)

Right on timeon locationIt’s in the booksMan oh man

Elon Musk created Paypal. Sold it for billions and took that money and invested it in America. You know like what the tax cut bill was supposed to do. He really did it. What did he create? A solar company, A car company, A rocket company, and in his spare time he’s proposed a tunneling company. This ain’t a guy who got rich making a app that puts a funny hat on someone’s photo. This is big hard to do stuff. And he’s an immigrant. This is the kind of person the Trump wants to keep out of our country.